Animal Farm

George Orwell

Key Facts

Quiz

Study Questions

1.

Compare and
contrast Napoleon and Snowball. What techniques do they use in their
struggle for power? Does Snowball represent a morally legitimate
political alternative to the corrupt leadership of Napoleon?

As Joseph Stalin did, Napoleon prefers to
work behind the scenes to build his power through manipulation and
deal-making, while Snowball devotes himself, as Leon Trotsky did,
to winning popular support through his ideas, passionate speeches,
and success in debates with his opponent. Snowball seems to work
within the political system, while Napoleon willingly circumvents
it. Napoleon, for instance, understands the role of force in political
control, as is made clear by his use of the attack dogs to expel
Snowball from the farm.

Despite Napoleon’s clearly bullying tactics, Orwell’s
text doesn’t allow us to perceive Snowball as a preferable alternative.
Snowball does nothing to prevent the consolidation of power in the
hands of the pigs, nor does he stop the unequal distribution of
goods in the pigs’ favor—he may even, in fact, be complicit in it
early on. Furthermore, the ideals of Animal Farm—like Orwell’s ideal
version of socialism—are rooted in democracy, with all of the animals
deciding how their collective action should be undertaken. For any
one animal to rise to greater power than any other would violate
that ideal and essentially render Animal Farm indistinguishable
from a human farm—an unavoidable eventuality by the end of the novella. Though
their motives for power may be quite different—Napoleon seems to
have a powerful, egocentric lust for control, while Snowball seems
to think himself a genius who should be the one to guide the farm
toward success—each represents a potential dictator. Neither pig
has the other animals’ interests at heart, and thus neither represents
the socialist ideals of Animal Farm.

2.

Why do you
think Orwell chose to use a fable in his condemnation of Soviet
communism and totalitarianism? Fiction would seem a rather indirect method
of political commentary; if Orwell had written an academic essay,
he could have named names, pointed to details, and proven his case
more systematically. What different opportunities of expression
does a fable offer its author?

Historically, fables or parables have allowed
writers to criticize individuals or institutions without endangering
themselves: an author could always claim that he or she had aimed
simply to write a fairy tale—a hypothetical, meaningless children’s
story. Even now, when many nations protect freedom of speech, fables
still come across as less accusatory, less threatening. Orwell never
condemns Stalin outright, a move that might have alienated certain
readers, since Stalin proved an ally against Adolf Hitler’s Nazi
forces. Moreover, the language of a fable comes across as gentle,
inviting, and unassuming: the reader feels drawn into the story
and can follow the plot easily, rather than having to wade through
a self-righteous polemic. In writing a fable, Orwell expands his
potential audience and warms it to his argument before he even begins.

Because fables allow for the development of various
characters, Orwell can use characterization to add an element of
sympathy to his arguments. Especially by telling the story from
the point of view of the animals, Orwell draws us in and allows
us to identify with the working class that he portrays. Thus, a
fable allows him to appeal more intensely to emotion than a political
essay might enable him to do.

Additionally, in the case of Animal Farm,
the lighthearted, pastoral, innocent atmosphere of the story stands
in stark contrast to the dark, corrupt, malignant tendencies that
it attempts to expose. This contrast adds to the story’s force of
irony: just as the idyllic setting and presentation of the story
belies its wretched subject matter, so too do we see the utopian
ideals of socialism give way to a totalitarian regime in which the
lower classes suffer.

Finally, by writing in the form of a fable, Orwell universalizes
his message. Although the specific animals and events that he portrays clearly
evoke particular parallels in the real world, their status as symbols
allows them to signify beyond specific times and places. Orwell
himself encourages this breadth of interpretation: while the character
of Napoleon, for example, refers most directly to Stalin in deed
and circumstance, his name evokes his resemblance to the French
general-turned-autocrat Napoleon.

3.

From whose
perspective is Animal Farm told? Why would Orwell have chosen such
a perspective?

Animal Farm is not told
from any particular animal’s perspective; properly speaking, it
doesn’t have a protagonist. Rather, it is told from the perspective
of the common animals as a group: we read, for example, that “[t]he
animals were stupefied. . . . It was some minutes before they could
take it all in.” This technique enables Orwell to paint a large
portrait of the average people who suffer under communism. Through
this choice of narrative perspective, he shows the loyalty, naïveté,
gullibility, and work ethic of the whole class of common animals.
In this way, he can effectively explore the question of why large
numbers of people would continue to accept and support the Russian
communist government, for example, even while it kept them hungry
and afraid and even after its stated goals had clearly and decisively
failed.

Suggested Essay Topics

1. How does Orwell explore the
problem of rhetoric in Animal Farm? Paying particular
attention to the character of Squealer, how is language used as
an instrument of social control? How do the pigs rewrite history?

2. Discuss Boxer. What role does
he play on the farm? Why does Napoleon seem to feel threatened by
him? In what ways might one view the betrayal of Boxer as an alternative
climax of the novel (if we consider Napoleon’s banishment of Snowball
and the pigs’ initial consolidation of power as the true climax)?

3. Do you think Animal
Farm’s message would come across effectively to someone
who knows nothing about Soviet history or the conflict between Stalin
and Trotsky? What might such a reader make of the story?

4. Of all of the characters in Animal
Farm, are there any who seem to represent the point of
view of the author? Which of the animals or people do you think
come(s) closest to achieving Orwell’s perspective on Animal
Farm?

6. Which of the animals does most of the heavy labor and adopts the motto :Ï will work harder"? Boxer
7. Boxer, who believes that he has unintentionally killed a stable boy in the chaos, expresses his regret at taking a life, even though it is a human one. Snowball tells him not to feel guilty, asserting that “the only good human being is a dead one.”
8. After the banishment of Snowball, the animals learn that Napoleon supports the windmill project
9.The pigs begin living in the farmhouse, and rumor has it that they e... Read more→

I would have loved to see Snowball come back, apparently as would most people. But that is only while looking at the literal sense of the book. If you look at the book on a deeper level, when you notice the satire and allegory, you will see that Snowball had to leave and not come back, for he represents Leon Trotsky, a man who was driven out of Russia by Joseph Stalin (Napoleon).